Here at The Craft, I’m interested in the stories behind teaching, learning, and schools. What attracts someone to teaching? What keeps them in the game? How do we design truly meaningful learning environments? Where is schooling going? How can we be a part of helping to guide the evolution? In the first three episodes, I have focused on collecting the stories of teachers, very different teachers, to learn a bit about how they got into teaching in the first place and what keeps them in the craft. In each episode, I also ask the teachers what they want to talk about in terms of teaching, learning, and schools. So far, we’ve hung out with David Sokoloff, a Philly public school history teacher, and talked about the relationship between space and learning. We met with Amy Lafty, an Archdioscese English teacher, and learned about the challenges of being a mom-teacher, her push for project-based learning, and the phenomenon of prom. Now, hot off the USB microphone, we have Louis Herbst, a Swiss Army knife of a teacher, having taught everything from 6th grade social studies to PreK through 8th grade PE as well as serving as the athletic director, the afterschool enrichment coordinator, and summer camp director at United Friends School. We caught Louis just days before he jumped in his car with his wife and young son to head out to Scattergood Friends where he now is the Academic Dean at Scattergood Friends.

The truly dynamic teachers tend to be the ones who do not go into teaching through the traditional routes. I’m not talking about getting certified through Teach for America instead of the State. I’m talking about life trajectory. In this episode, you’ll hear a bit about Louis’ turbulent middle and high school experience and how that nudged him into teaching. You’ll also hear a bit about a really interesting non-profit he started in his undergraduate work that further pushed him towards teaching. Dynamic teachers also tend to not perpetuate the status quo. Louis’ rather unorthodox approach to the interview that landed him the job at United Friends is proof of that.

One of the wonderful things about Louis’ job at United Friends was that he had the chance to teach the same kids from 4 years old to 13, so he got to watch them learn how to tie their shoes and learn how to navigate the sometimes turbulent waters of adolescents. Louis shares a bit about how this experience has shaped him.

Because the conversation with Louis was so rich, I am going to divide up the episode into 3 bite-sized segments, each of around 20 minutes or so. Perfect accompaniment to a jog or a drive to work! In the first segment, we get to hear about Louis’ rather turbulent middle and high school experience that pushed him into teaching, his unorthodox interview tactic that involved robots and Henry Box Brown that helped him land his job at United Friends, what it is like to be able to teach a child from 4 to 13 years old, and why it is so great when a student asks “why do we need to learn this?” Enjoy!